Poll

Today's Opinions

On Sunday, May 17, in this space, we reported on the annual Kids Count study on the status of children in the country and for each of the 50 states. For our kids in South Carolina, the results were not good, as we as a state had slipped two places in the rankings.
Last year, South Carolina ranked 45th of the 50 states in the well-being of our children, the same place as in 2013, but down two places from 2012, when we ranked 43rd.
We are gaining speed in the wrong direction.

There are animal lovers, as well as animal haters, out there.
Animals have feelings like we do and they deserve to be loved and cared for, not abandoned and abused. It’s too bad that some people do not have the common sense to see this.
I am writing this in response to the article in the paper about the kittens that were tied up and thrown in the trash can at Walmart in Indian Land.
These reports really make me mad.

When Republicans gathered in Columbia last week, we celebrated last year’s victories – victories we worked together to achieve – and also talked face-to-face about what it means to be a Republican.
The Republican Party has a platform that defines its mission, but not all Republican elected officials follow every letter of the platform.
And that’s fine.
But what we’ve always said is that the people of our state deserve a government that works for them, not the other way around.

I moved to Sun City Carolina Lakes in Indian Land over the Christmas holiday. I found a morning group of guys who have a wealth of information about the area that I needed and wanted to know, so I joined them. Talk came around about needing a post office in our area.
So being me, I wrote a letter to our Congressman Mick Mulvaney. I hear he campaigned on wanting to serve the taxpayers of this area. Well, what I arrived at is we the people really need our own post office. The letter was written and mailed.

I have written this column before. In fact, I’ve written this same basic column about this time every year for the past several years.
And I’ll write it again next year, and every year for as long as I do this column because it’s so important. It’s about how well the children of South Carolina are doing. The answer in a word is – worse.

I’m sure Bill Ardrey’s April 29 letter to the editor, “Lancaster County needs sawmill,” opened eyes to the numerous benefits that a state-of-the-art lumber planing mill would have for Lancaster County.
Not only would it put hundreds of local people to work with high-paying jobs, it would benefit the local forest industry (the No. 1 industry in South Carolina) by giving them a higher price for their timber, without having to travel long distances to sell their timber.

The Indian Land Middle School sixth-grade Myrtle Beach trip was a great showing of kindness and caring.
First, I want to give sixth-grade teacher Cheryl Fleishman a big high-five for all her hard work. I also want to thank Marci Lail for all her great assistance. Thank you both for the great job.
We all had a great time, but on the way back home, one of our tour buses broke down. The buses pulled over into a church parking lot.

Everything’s set in downtown Lancaster for the kickoff of the city’s sixth annual Red Rose Festival tonight. There’s just one thing missing – you.
So gather up your family and head down to Lancaster’s historic downtown for two days of outdoor concerts, dancing in the streets, arts and crafts, kids activities, a car show, dog show, photo contest, roaming entertainment and more.